Islamophobia in Times of Corona

NailaAlavi

At a time when the world is drenched in the fear of a decreasing possibility to see a new tomorrow, Modi government is busiest in watering the sapling of hatred that has been planted on the ground of communalism. Will Indians die more out of hate and hunger than the Corona pandemic?

Did you think when the world is dealing with an invincible viral enemy, the Indian state will forget its anti-Muslimness for once and refrain from making Muslims the scapegoat? You’re naïve if you think otherwise. The enemy always has to be a Muslim, not the state with zero backups to deal with an exponentially multiplying pandemic.

The country’s seven decades of existence as a democratic republic is only a blip and 2020 will be the darkest blotch, one which may have already changed its destiny for time immortal. These seventy-two years unfolding of the Indian secular spirit now appears to be ruined, slaughtered, and incinerated by its own chaiwala and chaukidar. From the cinders, another country rises: Hindu-sthan or Aryavratt - the place that is known for the resurgent, thundering Hindu who had been chomping at the bit to lay attack to the land directly from its birth.

On March 25 as Indians woke up to the first day of a three-week lockdown to stave off the COVID19 epidemic, disease surveillance officials in the national capital had just begun uncovering a problem that would soon unravel into an epidemiological headache spanning 19 states. Hundreds of members of a religious organization ‘Tableeghi Jamaat’ may have already taken the infection to far reaches of the country, sharing flights, buses, trains and community events even before the country could be shut down.

The headquarters of a religious organization in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area, Nizamuddin Markaz, has emerged as one of the biggest Coronavirus hot spots in India with 24 people testing positive and nearly 200 others showing symptoms on Monday even as officials began evacuating the six-storey building of some 1,100 others who are believed to have been exposed to the virus.

The news flash prompted Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal to ask the Delhi Police to register an FIR against the head of the Markaz. “A lockdown was imposed in entire India on March 24 and it was the duty of every owner and administrator of every hotel, guesthouse, hostel and similar establishment to maintain social distancing. It looks like social distancing and quarantine protocols were not practised here,” said a statement by the government.

Delhi health minister Satyender Jain said the gathering at the Markaz flouted Delhi government’s orders, stating that “The organizers have committed a grave crime,” and that he had written a letter to LG Anil Baijal to take “strictest action against the organizers.” A report of India Today states that the Indian government, on Tuesday decided not to issue tourist visa to any foreigner who wishes to visit India to take part in Tableeghi Jamaat activities following the Nizamuddin controversy.

The big question that lurks here- Is Nizamuddin Markaz controversy just another attempt to propogate Islamophobia?

In a tweet Syed Sadatullah Hussaini, President of Jamat-e-Islami wrote: Targeting Tableeghi Jamaat and ignoring the bigger and more irresponsible gathering; Playing dirty politics of communal polarization on such a huge health crisis; it reflects shamefully low level of our public discourse.

The response to updates on the Coronavirus spreading after the religious gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz is a marker of how prepared certain segments of the Indian public are to nail the fault to Muslims, regardless of how questionable the association. While Delhi's CM Kejriwal has registered an FIR against the coordinators of the event; the coordinators expressed that, first, the occasion had started some time before the lockdown, and second, they made endeavors to empty and decongest the get-together but were met with obstacles because of the Janata curfew on March 22.

The #CoronaJihad discussion aims to represent it this way that it was only a Muslim strict get-together that flouted government guidelines of social distancing, thus jeopardizing the public wellbeing. The mass migration of daily wage laborers from India's metro cities saw a similarly tremendous assembling of public on national expressways and at interstate transport stops, railroads, local stations, which were similarly as egregious an oversight for the administration's sake as the strict social event was on the coordinators.

While the religious event at Nizamuddin Markaz had started even before the lockdown was announced, UP CM Adityanath's parade to introduce a symbol of Lord Rama occurred after, in a way, flouting lockdown rules, yet there was no FIR documented against him. Strict social events of all stripes, including the procession of ‘thali bangers’ on Janata curfew proceeded as the month progressed, even as the quantity of coronavirus cases kept on moving in India, yet just the Nizamuddin Markaz gathering has come in for such backlash. The aftermath of COVID-19 spread post the Nizamuddin Markaz gathering, in fact, exposes irregularities in the administration's announcements and ill preparedness to tackle the pandemic.

However, blowing the Nizamuddin controversy out of proportion is simply the division of the country on a communal basis, something which is not alien to us. For once try to imagine the horrors of a daily wage laborer or a middle class Muslim man living in this country who was struggling to feed his family, his only hope during this calamity being ration provided by locals. These locals, after the controversy might now turn their backs against him. They might accuse him of being a parasite and who knows, the psychological trauma coupled with social stigma and crumbling financial status might lead him to end his life or his family’s life. Try to imagine the horrors of a Muslim man living in a locality of Hindus who were once very fond of him but due to the ever growing Islamophobia, the fans have been flamed again as he is forced to look up for another house. Try to imagine the horrors of a 19 years old Muslim boy who is thrown out by his landlord at midnight and has nowhere to go.

We belong to a nation which is more concerned about our religions than about the deteriorating economy. We belong to a nation which is more concerned about eradicating the minority than checking polarization. We belong to a nation where Orange is not merely a color but a religion. We belong to a nation where a 48-year-old north-eastern trader Shaukat Ali was accosted by a mob just because he was Shaukat Ali and not Ram Mohan.

When the whole nation is confronting a destructive infection alarm that doesn't appear to decrease at any point in the near future, separating society along communal lines is just going to make India more fragile. The Coronavirus doesn't pick its subjects along communal lines, and neither should India.

Let’s be more responsible and work united to fight the Covid19 as one nation.

(NailaAlavi is an undergraduate student of English Literature and History at Aligarh Muslim University)